Re: Wallops #8

[CJ FINE <cbmvax!uunet!BRADFORD.AC.UK!C.J.Fine>]

Ivan:
> >  > ni'o ca le bavlamdei ke clira clira
> >  Unlike Mark, I like this a lot.
>
> I don't.
>
> >  I also celebrate the adoption of a very
> >  widespread, but almost completely un-European, speech pattern.
>
> Would you also welcome reduplication to indicate plurality?
>

I repeat, I no more want to see reduplication adopted as an automatic
intensifier than any other automatic expression. But there are many
brivla, generally those which express some sort of scalar property,
where I think this pattern is useful.
 I cannot think of any examples where "broda broda" would suggest
multiplicity, so the answer is no.
 Funnily enough, though, this does remind me of a problem I'm wrestling
with in a translation: how do you cope with "time after time", and less
explicitly temporal instances such as "they went to house after house
looking for ..."?
 This is an idiom which seems to be very widespread in natural
languages, and conveys both the repetition and a sense of determination
(and eventually, frustration) that I am finding it hard to capture.

	kolin